Friday, January 29, 2016

One of the RAAF's base level, unusual aerial sightings files, which I found on RecordSearch earlier this month, has just been digitised for me. I am waiting for two others to be digitised.

It is National Archives of Australia file series A9755 control symbol 10, barcode 3533543. It's status is "Open with exception." The file was formerly a Department of Defence file, simply titled "Unusual Aerial Sightings", number 5/113/AIR Part 10, held by number 82 bomber wing, Amberley RAAF base in Queensland.

The digitised version has 39 pages, but there is a standard blue mask on the file indicating that 2.5 cms thickness of other documents are on the file, but outside the Archive Act.

The only way to obtain these remaining papers is by submitting a request under the Freedom of Information Act to the Department of Defence. As this would cost around Aust$1,000 I am not going to do this. If any reader would like to go through this process, the Australian UFO community would be very grateful.

What is on this file?

The file contains:

1. A number of standard internal RAAF proformas, which are usually completed by RAAF personnel from incoming telephone calls from members of the public. In brief, these are:

c. 25 Dec 1991 Peregian Beach, Qld 2045hrs 15 mins
On a clear and calm night, looking east, a person saw an object travelling to the NNW. "A bright red top orange triangular shape object...moving moderately fast...A second object of similar colour and shape appeared 3 minutes after the first object and followed the same path and heading. No sound..."

Monday, January 25, 2016

Project Newsprint commenced in September 2015. Its main aim is to seek any previously unknown, past or current sightings, from remote and regional Australia, outside of the capital cities, by forwarding letters to the editors of newspapers.

Stage one was conducted in Western Australia, and the final stage one report may be read here. Some fascinating, older close encounter cases came to light.

Stage two

The second state in which I chose to run Project Newsprint, was Victoria. I submitted 100 plus emails directly to the editors of rural and regional newspapers, plus posted on their respective newspaper run Facebook pages. I advised that I was collecting sightings from their local area and that I would like to hear from readers about their experiences.

Image courtesy Google Maps

Detailed articles about the Project were carried by a number of papers, including the Mildura "Sunraysia Daily"; (two articles) the "Swan Hill Guardian"; the "Wangaratta Chronicle"; the "Mansfield Courier" and the "Gippsland Times."

While walking alone at around 2am a man noticed a very bright light in the sky. The light then went off. About two seconds later, a very large, 200 metres across, object appeared silently over the town. It looked to be 3-4 tiers deep and had layers of portholes just like a passenger ship. It travelled over the town and he lost sight of it over a hill.

A man was driving to Melbourne at around 2200hrs. He was on a remote stretch of road, with no other vehicles around when ahead of him he noticed what he thought originally were headlights of another vehicle. They disappeared,. Next, on his left about 150 metres away, over paddocks he noted a light which appeared to be going at the same speed as him, namely 100 km/hr. It was near ground level. He looked back and forwards a number of times and it was still there. Finally, one time he looked it had gone. Then he saw it to the right of the road, at ground level. It disappeared. then it reappeared ahead of him along the road. This went on for 20-30 kilometres. It then just disappeared. Later, he returned along the road during daylight but found nothing to account for his observations.

12. Mafra, Vic. Undated.

A man and two mates were driving near Maffra at about 1930hrs one evening, to visit the man's brother who was a farmer. They first noticed a large orange glow in the sky, but when they got closer found it was a large orange coloured object sitting over power lines. The man said he got out of his car and felt his hair stand on end. The object slowly travelled over adjacent paddocks. There was a slight, high pitched noise associated with the object. It then shot off at high speed and was lost to sight in a few seconds.

The three men continued on to the brother's farm. When they arrived there they were surprised to find that it was now 2200hrs and they could not account for 2 missing hours of time.

Comments﻿

What was interesting was that I received sightings mainly from the newspapers where the more detailed articles appeared, rather than from newspapers which published the letter to the editor. My known hit rate for an article to appear was only about 6% of the total emails sent out. It is possible that if every newspaper had published an article, I may have received 150 plus sightings.

Another thing worthy of mention, is that over half of the people who responded, told me that I was the first person outside of their family to whom they had confided in about their sighting.

As a side note, former VUFORS researcher, Paul Norman (now deceased) used to travel to country Victoria locations, announcing the dates when he would be there through the local paper, and where he was staying, and interview people who came to see him about their sightings. He came up with some very good reports using this method.

Stage three﻿

Project Newsprint - Queensland - stage three, has been underway for some time now. Sheryl Gottschall, of UFO Research (Queensland) has contacted Queensland newspapers seeking past and current sightings. She will shortly forward me details of those incoming sightings; which I can then share with blog readers.﻿

In summary﻿

Victoria has shown, like Western Australian, that a simple letter to the editor, can produce some previously unknown and interesting sighting reports.

Friday, January 22, 2016

I have now found out details about three more close encounter cases from Victoria, which involved objects approaching motor vehicles travelling along the road.

Paradise Beach - 2003/2004

Following the appearance of a piece about Project Newsprint, in a recent issue of the "Gippsland Times" I received a telephone call from a man, who told me about yet another close encounter.

22 January 2016 edition

He was 6-7 kilometres out of Paradise Beach in Victoria, heading westwards towards Longford in a car. At about 3pm, so in broad daylight, he saw a small, bright, white light off in the distance through his windscreen. This bright light became larger, and brighter as if approaching the vehicle. As it came even closer he saw no shape, or structure, to the light since it was so bright. There was no associated noise at any stage.

Image courtesy whereis?

He began to become alarmed as the light seemed to be heading directly towards his car, coming down at a forty-five degree angle. He had wound down the driver's window as the object approached him. He thought for a moment that it was going to crash into the vehicle and he might die. The duration up to this point he estimated at ten seconds. At closest approach it seemed to veer to one side and moved away from the car, became smaller and then was gone.

He continued to drive on towards Longford, and about 2 kilometres further on, saw a car pulled up at the side of the road and a man was outside looking up. My witness says he decided not to stop. There was no air pressure effects on the car from the object.

Coongulla - Around 1997

UFO Research NSW Inc. received a fascinating report on 27 April 2015 from a 71 year old man from Coongulla, Victoria to advise them about a personal experience. Their report notes are as follows.

"...lives in Coongulla, a small town close to lake Glenmaggie in southern Victoria, 160 kilometres east of Melbourne. He worked at the Glenmaggie reservoir doing maintenance on the dame and allocating water irrigation to the local farms.

Eighteen years ago he was travelling home one night at about 10pm along Upper Mafra Road, when he became aware of a bank of 6 lights appearing suddenly behind his car and shining so brightly, they almost blinded him. It was like daylight. He said to himself "you bastard" before pulling over to let the vehicle pass. However, the lights were suddenly gone, vanished into thin air.

Image courtesy whereis?

He started driving again but found himself on a different road and he had no idea where he was or how he got there. He said to himself "I don't remember this road." He drove for some time before noticing the Coongulla sign and arrived home at midnight, 2 hours later than expected.

He had no recollection what happened in those two hours and he felt as if his memory had been blanked out. He felt awful, tired and confused. When he tried to make a cup of tea, he had to think how to do it and he felt weak and shaken. The next day he went to work but didn't feel good and his supervisor asked him what was wrong. For most of the day he continued to feel shaken and confused but the feeling eventually went away. He had no further memories about that incident and what could have happened to him that night, but he wondered if he'd been picked up by a UFO and whether they had also taken his car up into a craft. He said, other people have seen strange lights in that area and one fellow he spoke to believed there is a portal in that area."

Jam Jerrup, Victoria - Around late 1980's

An Internet search located the third case, from a copy of the "South Gippsland Sentinel Times" dated 18 February 2014. This was an article titled "Close Encounters of the South Gippy Kind." Included in the article, was the following.

"...with one particularly disturbing account dating back to the late 1980's. 'A woman was abducted near Jam Jerrup as she was driving down South Gippsland Highway to pick her husband up at Tooradin one night' Steve explained.

Image courtesy whereis?

'While driving she was blinded by a bright white light and the next thing she remembered was driving down the highway still, but highly confused and disoriented.

'Half an hour has passed and she had no idea how or why. Her husband went mental at her for being late but she couldn't explain what had happened. The next day she hopped into the shower and found a triangular pattern on her stomach she couldn't explain."

Thursday, January 21, 2016

On 28 June 2012 I wrote a blog piece about the discovery of two Australian government files relating to the disappearance, in 1978, of pilot Frederick Valentich, over Bass Strait, Australia.

Last year, in September, while randomly checking the National Archives of Australia's RecordSearch database, I found a two part file which also relates to the disappearance.

The new file is NAA file series B638, control symbol M116/783/1047 parts 1 and part 2; barcodes 10499635 and 10499636. Series B638 is comprised of 299 air safety, accident and incident files, where M stands for Melbourne.﻿

I immediately requested that the files, whose status was "Not yet examined" be examined. On 18 December 2015, I was advised that both parts of the file were now "open." I then submitted a request to have the file digitised, and paid the relevant fee.

Perhaps firstly, the question is, where did this new file originate? We know that the already known file, NAA file series B1497 control symbol V116/783/1047, was owned by the Department of Civil Aviation, Victoria-Tasmania region. However, this new file NAA file series B638 control symbol M116/783/1047 was owned by the Department of Civil Aviation, Central Office.

Part one of the file is 200 pages, with part two being 139 pages long. Between the two, there are:

* dozens and dozens of newspaper clippings about the disappearance, perhaps the largest collection of articles I have come across

* numerous documents where statements were taken from individuals such as aircraft refuellers; pilots; and briefing officers. We have previously seen all of these statements on NAA file series A4703 control symbol 1978/1205 and NAA file series B1497 control symbol V116/783/1047

* a few, previously unseen typed and handwritten official minutes between individuals. However, even these really add very little to the debate as to what caused the disappearance.

One interesting set of papers is a letter from Allan Brunt, Regional Director for South Australia for the Bureau of Meteorology. Allan was open to taking a look at UFO reports, and he and I had a series of discussions about specific sightings, such as the 1988 Knowles car lift case.

On 3 August 1982 Allan forwarded a three page letter to the Department of Transport about the disappearance. Amongst his comments was one in regards to the fact that the UFO reported by Valentich was not seen continuously but on three separate occasions. Allan wrote "This type of sighting is consistent with a multiple meteor observation or a "meteor shower" with not just one, but several phenomena in procession. From the evidence available, I am unable to rule out the possibility that the pilot of VH-DSJ was frightened by the appearance of one or more meteors and, fearing a collision, took evasive action, or being seriously distracted by the frightening phenomena, flew into the sea."

You can view the file

To take a look at the file for yourself, or to download the file's PDF, go to http://www.naa.gov.au and on the home screen type "dsj" into the "search the collection" window, and click on "go."

Finally, yet another Valentich file revealed

We now know of three Australian government files relating to the disappearance of Valentich. However, the latest file's inside cover reveals yet another, unknown file. This is a Department of Transport file number 123/1/30 titled "ASIB requests for information regarding accident to Cessna 182L aircraft VH-DSJ on 21/9/78." (This date of 21/9/78 is incorrect, it should be 21/10/78.) I checked the NAA's RecordSearch and this fourth file is not listed. I checked using words within its title, but found no trace of it in RecordSearch. Yet another mystery. ﻿

Wednesday, January 20, 2016

Thanks to an observant Adelaide individual, I have now found out that Ronald Ernest Ellis, the main witness of the pre Kenneth Arnold, "flying eggs", at Port Augusta in 1947, passed away on 15 July 2008, aged 87 years. He is buried in the Stirling North Garden Cemetery.

The same Adelaide man, also directed my attention to a photograph of Ellis, which I reproduce below.

In another previous post, I advised that I was aware that an Adelaide researcher, whose first name was Mishelle, managed to locate and interview Ellis in 2006. Although a preliminary report was available of this interview, no final report is known. I believe that Adelaide researcher Jeff Fausch, has now located Mishelle. Jeff is awaiting direct contact with Mishelle, to see if we can obtain a more detailed report of her interview with Ellis.

Update 10 February 2016.

I have now established email communications with Mishelle. She confirms that she did conduct an interview in 2006 with Ron Ellis. In addition, she advises that she may still have her interview notes and even an audio recording, at her home. However, she is away from home at the moment and it will be some time before she returns there. She says, when she gets home she will look for this material and advise me further. I will update this blog when I know more.

Tuesday, January 19, 2016

Project Newsprint - Victoria, continues to appear in Victorian newspapers. The latest to feature the Project was today's edition of the "Gippsland Times" (Sale) in hard copy version only.

So far, today, I have heard about the following sightings:

November 2005, Mildura

"I was driving home one night on the Calder Highway between Mildura and Merbein West. I noticed in the north west region of the sky , at what I estimated to be a 45 degree angle four bright orange/red stationary orbs of light, estimated three times the brightness of a star or planet.

What struck me immediately was the quality of light they produced unlike any aircraft light I have ever seen. They gave me the impression of being more of an energy or a plasma, than an ordinary electric light if that makes sense.

I pulled over to the side of the road and got out of my car to get a better grasp of what I was seeing. As I watched, at different times to one another they would slowly fade in brightness to a small point of white light, barely visible. Within seconds they would start to gain brightness and intensity again, glowing back to a bright orange/red orb.

Courtesy Google maps.

This went on for a while, fading in and out at different times. Right when I thought that was strange enough I noticed that two of the balls of light had positioned themselves horizontally to one another, quite close together, with a third to the left of them creating a formation resembling something close to a right angled triangle.

This is when I really began to wonder what I was looking at. It gave me the impression I was seeing something intelligent, or a display of intelligence as crazy as that sounds. One by one the balls of light had faded out to not return, while one seemed to stay visible and slowly move off into the horizon before disappearing.

The whole sighting lasted around 10-15 minutes. I've always been baffled by what they were. If they were Chinese Lanterns they were incredibly;y bright, and I couldn't imagine these to fade out to near invisibility, only to become brighter again over and over, one by one. They were also rather stationary in terms of their position in the sky throughout the sighting, not moving with the wind."

17 January 2016

Andrew of Mildura telephoned to tell me that at about 2215 hrs, he and three other people were in his backyard when they saw two objects in the night sky. One was a bright orange colour, and noiselessly slowly moved across the sky. The other was a white light which had at one point, turned across the path of the orange light. This one was also silent.

Unknown date

A man from Sale telephoned me to advise that when he was age 19, he lived in Dargo, Victoria. His dog had become disturbed and looking up he had seen a cigar shaped light in the sky, hovering above them. It made no sound.

Sunday, January 17, 2016

There are certain categories of UAP reports that do not seem to be occurring today, in the numbers of former years. One of these, is the close encounter between individuals in a motor vehicle and UAP. Undertaking a review of such Victorian reports, I noticed three such incidents happened in the years 1993 and 1994.

January 1993. Mansfield, Victoria. 2300hrs
Four people travelling by car noticed two lights in the distance which approached them. They got out of the car for a better look and saw a large horizontal cylindrical shaped object pass over the vehicle. They got back in the car and left the area. For more details click here.

8 August 1993. Belgrave, Melbourne, Victoria. 0000hrs.
The Kelly Cahill abduction case. A couple in a car saw an object descend into a paddock. A group of tall entities approached them. For further details click here.

Image courtesy Amazon Books.

24 July 1994. 60kms NW of Melbourne, Victoria. 0430hrs
Four people in a car saw a large, orange coloured light close to their vehicle. A large diamond shaped object was seen close to the ground. They believed they had lost 75 minutes of unaccounted for time.

A "new" old event reported

Through Project Newsprint, I was contacted by a man from Victoria who recounted the following story to me.

"My first UFO encounter happened in the autumn/winter of 1994 I think. I didn't write the date down but my friend who was there did and I can ask him, so you might be able to tie it in with other sightings.

At that time I would have been 20. There were four of us in the car, musicians, coming home from a gig in Ruby, near Korumburra in Gippsland, probably 1 or 2 in the morning.

Image courtesy Whereis?

Things got strange well before the encounter as there was a real pea soup fog as we drove through a small town to the extent that we had to drive very slow, watching the white line to not run off the road and we nearly hit a pedestrian even at very slow speed. It was quite surreal.

After not too long the fog cleared and we were on the open road for maybe 10 or 20 minutes when off in the distance there was an orange glow lighting up the sky as if a bushfire was burning but it couldn't be in winter!

As we got close it still didn't make any sense until we rounded the hill and there it was. At this point our memories are slightly divergent but clear and even weirder, later I have three differing memories of the same event but I'll get to that later.

A large red ball in the sky﻿

A blood red (my friend says orange red) ball of light about the size of a house, roughly 100 metres away, 30 or 50 metres high. Instantly we all knew this was not manmade! It was silent! I had the intense feeling that it was like a huge eye looking into the car, looking into us! This thing was so powerful and simply beyond human, the object itself seemed excruciatingly aware of us. No details were visible in its appearance. The instant feeling of our world being turned upside down, paradigm shattered us. It was if a dream was on us.

The car had slowed down and the driver pulled off to the side but I think after only 10 or 20 seconds (I can only guess at this stage) the thing simply vanished or shot into the sky so fast it seemed to vanish.

The driver was taking it ok but the front seat passenger panicked and said "get the f...out of here" so we drove off. I remember being stunned but not scared perhaps because I was a bit stoned, but my friend next to me in the back seat said "c'mon we might only see something like that once in our life, we have to go back."

So, the driver turned the car around and we went back. We didn't see anything. We drove slowly for another 4 or 5 minutes but it seemed to be gone, and then we came over the crest of a hill and there it was again, right over the road straight in front of us, lower and this time bluish-white light and much brighter.

Fractured memories﻿

Then came a point the others don't recall, but I have different memory of:

1. Is that orange red blobs of what looked like lava simply fell out of it and I can't remember anything after they hit the ground.

2. Is that several blood red perfect triangles of light came out of the sphere and descended to the ground with a gentle wavy motion. I can't remember anything after they went behind some trees and touched the ground.

3. Is that they weren't triangles but blood red lines that shot out at incredible speed tracing out perfect triangle angles as they shot towards the ground, after that I can't remember.

The next thing any of us remember we were on the road driving at speed on the highway towards Melbourne, the opposite direction to before we all blacked out.

The keyboard player from the band overtook us, he was later to tell us he had stayed back at the gig for at least another hour after us!

When we got back to the driver's girlfriend's house she was quite distressed as to what took us so long.

Another weird thing is that I had a vague memory of stopping at some servo on the way home after the encounter as we went in and sort of milled around but didn't buy anything. The other guys say we didn't stop."

Questions

I asked my informant a number of questions which he kindly responded to.

Q1. There were four of you in the car. Can you recall the people's first names for me, and where each was sitting in the car?

A1. "The driver was ...; front passenger ....; ... and myself in back seats."

Q2. Can you recall what day of the week the event was, ie. 1 or 2 o'clock on what day?

A2. "I can't be sure which day of the week, I would only be guessing, but probably Friday or Saturday."

Q3. By this time, 1 or 2 o'clock how long had you been awake?

A3. "I slept in late every day at this time (playing gigs 4 nights a week) so I was most likely up for around 14 hours and definitely, not like 24 or anything like that."

Q4. Any clues as to exactly where you were when you saw the large sphere of light?

A4. "I looked at the map this morning and I clearly remember we weren't on the highway when we saw the object. It was a secondary road; 2 lanes. I would say we headed north to get to the Princes Highway instead of the South Gippsland Highway. I don't remember seeing any other cars before the encounter. We may have passed other cars but it was a lonely road with not much traffic. If we were on the highway we would have been passing plenty of traffic even late at night."

Q5. How long did you expect it to take to drive from Ruby to Melbourne?

A5. "The drive would be over 2 hours."

Q6. May I check if the driver's girlfriend's place was in Melbourne? If so do you recall which suburb?

A6. " I can't recall which suburb sorry."

Q7 Roughly what time would you have expected to arrive at her place?

A7. "We would expect to be there between 3 and 4am."

Q8. Any idea what time you actually arrived at her peace?

A8. " I think we were about an hour late so more like 4 or 5 at least."

Q9. The blood red sphere - how large was it compared to say the full moon seen on the horizon?

A9. "The blood red sphere was much bigger than a full moon, it was easy to make out that it was close as the car was moving and it was not on the far horizon. We came around a hill on a farm and there it was next to the hill. I am certain it was not in the distance."

Q10. Was the red light constant in brightness?

A10. "The light was featureless except that it seemed to have static to it like the static on an old tv not tuned in. It seemed fiery and full of energy. I can't really say it was in fact a sphere, either it was hard to define,its appearance as it could have been a cardboard cutout, like a hole in the sky with light shining through. It was utterly hypnotising. We could only stare in absolute awe."

Q11. Did the red light hurt your eyes to look at?

A11. "The light did not hurt to look at, it was a very intense colour but not painful or too bright to look at."

Q12. The second time, was the bluish-white light, how big was it compared to the full moon?

A12. The second time again it was the same size and at that close distance I would say it was 4 times the size of a full moon low on the horizon. The object was elevated and around 30 metres high off the ground. Also we had turned the car around and driven back on the same road well past the point where we saw it the first time.

The first time it was on the left side of the car as we came around the hill. Now it was quite some distance, perhaps 1 km further up the road, straight in front of the car. The first time it disappeared while we were watching it with a clear view."

Q13. Was there any associated noise the second time?

A13. "Again, it was silent."

Q14. I assume the keyboard player was in a second car? Did he tell you he saw anything unusual?

A14. 'The keyboard player did not see anything unusual except that he passed us after staying back for quite some time after us."

I am attempting to locate and interview the other three occupants of the vehicle.

One Friday night, at about 11pm, early in January 1993, four people were travelling by car from Melbourne to Mansfield, in Victoria. At a point nine kilometres out of Mansfield, one of them "...asked if anyone had noticed the two lights in the distance." They were both constant white lights. One appeared to be "...following the outline of the distant mountains and one following straight along the ground."

After watching them "...for a short time they appeared to come together and moving across the land..." towards them from the car's left hand side.

After watching for about a minute, they decided to stop the car, and get out for a look. "Close to the road we could see a down light, which was switched off as it moved overhead, just above the gum trees."

Visible to them now, was "...an extremely large cylinder..." with white lights around the edge. "There was no sound and we stood and watched it pass over." The cylinder was in a horizontal position as it went over.

"I don't remember being interested in watching where it went, but we all got back in the car, with no comment from any of us. It wasn't spoken of over the weekend at the holiday house."

"I spoke to my friend years later (who had experienced UFOs before) asking if she or our two friends had remembered the experience, and she was just full of excuses why they wouldn't. Very strange to me."

"At around the same time my two sons saw the quick moving lights in the Mansfield area and sat on the side of the road to watch them."

1994

When I read the above sighting this reminded me on an incident to four women travelling by car, again in Victoria, in 1994. I provide details below. I know of no one who investigated this 1994 incident.

Grace was driving the others home when oblong, glowing orange lights were seen parallel to the road. A few moments later a large orange light was noted only twenty metres behind the car. They stopped and got out of the vehicle and looked up to see a large, diamond shaped object, with writing on its tail, close to the ground. A steady, droning sound seemed to come from it. The object went sideways and disappeared behind trees. They went on in the car, pulled into a driveway but were frightened to see a shadowy, human figure. They left the scene. They were followed by a bright orange light, before it finally vanished. On arriving at Grace’s house they determined that seventy five minutes of time had been lost. The next day all four suffered nosebleeds and headaches. Victoria was charged with static electricity. All experienced frequent memory lapses. Them women later saw small, bright lights on the walls of Joy’s house.

Wednesday, January 13, 2016

Project Newsprint is underway in the state of Victoria, Australia. Articles about the Project, and my search for both past and current sightings, continue to appear in regional newspapers. The two latest newspapers to carry articles have been the "Wangaratta Chronicle" and the "Mansfield Courier."

I have received two more accounts from readers of the various articles which have now appeared.

Mildura, Victoria. December 2015.
A man telephoned me to advise me that around the first week of December 2015, he and his wife had been in the backyard of their house in Mildura at about 2145hrs. They noticed an unusual object in the sky, on a clear night. It was perfectly round in shape, plate shaped, was noiseless, and gave off a golden yellow light. It was visible for about 30 seconds and then titled to one side and shot off into the sky. When asked his estimate of its angular size he said the size of a fifty cent coin at arms length.
As it sped away, he said that the centre area of light dimmed.

Wangaratta, Victoria. 1997.
Chris telephoned me to tell me about an old observation from around 2000hrs, one clear night in 1997. He was riding his bike near Wangaratta, when he viewed a large, white coloured light on the outskirts of the town. The main light went out and several smaller lights appeared, then sped away. The whole incident lasted perhaps 20-30 seconds. There was no associated noise, and when asked the estimated size of the light he felt it was about moon sized. He recalls that a video, of the light, appeared on local television at the time. This may have been a meteor.

Tuesday, January 12, 2016

In early to mid December 2013, at around 2030-2045hrs, two men were having a barbeque in a West Mildura, Victoria, Australia, backyard. One man was turning sausages and chops, when the other, who was seated, noticed his friend looking to the sky to the south. The friend pointed and asked "What do you reckon that is, a private jet or something?"

Courtesy Google maps

They then both looked at the sight in the sky. At an angular elevation of about 20- 30 degrees to the south, travelling directly towards them is what was described "...as what looked like a large, fairy light that changed to different colours at a rate of about every second. Red, green, yellow, blue, orange etc in no particular pattern."

At first it had an elliptical shape, and an angular size estimated as "...perhaps 10-20% of a full moon" at that point.

The object approaches

It grew bigger in angular size, as if approaching them, and passed directly overhead. At this point, its shape was "...round with sort of blurred edges like you'd observe on car headlights in fog." At this overhead position, its angular size was estimated to be 50% of the full moon. Even at this point of closest approach, "...there was no solid observable shape like wings or a fuselage though as you'd expect in that sort of bright sunlight." There was no associated noise at any point in the observation.

"As it got directly above as it did this odd sine wave sort of wobble as it passed."

﻿"It continued almost directly due north and disappeared into a bank of cloud in the distance," at an angular elevation of about 20 degrees, north.

A second object is seen

However, this was not the end of the observation. The two men looked at each other, and then noticed "...a second one was moving towards us from exactly the same location" i.e. 20 degrees angular elevation to their south. This second object "...behaving exactly the same way and heading in the same direction." They both watched the second object disappear, and this time were both quite excited, and saying things like "...I can't believe it! and so on."

Other information

1. "It was clearly under cumulus clouds."

2. The entire event, of both lights passing over was perhaps 1-2 minutes in duration. The duration of the observation of the first light was "..less than a minute, perhaps 20-30 seconds from recollection."

3. "Perhaps a third of the sky" was obscured by cloud. It was cloudier to the north. Both objects were eventually obscured by a patch of cumulus, and not seen again.

4. The wind direction was not noted at the time.

5. There had been no thunderstorm activity in that area in the preceding hours.

6. Explanations considered by the observers included a military drone with flashing lights on it, "...but nothing I've researched has really fit the description. It doesn't make much sense to light up a military drone like a Christmas tree." Other possibilities considered was "Some sort of floating LED device attached to a Lantern or helium balloon."

2. Sunset at Mildura on 10 December 2013 was at 2036 hrs. It set at azimuth 240 degrees, i.e.30 degrees south of west.

3. The calculated angular speed of the objects was about between 4-7 degrees per second.

4. The angular size of each object at closest approach was about 0.25 degrees across. You would expect to be able to see structure on such an angular size if there were structure to see.

5. Weather details are not available on the Australian Bureau of Meteorology website back before August 2014.

5. Cumulus clouds have an average height of generally less than 1000 metres.

7. What could explain these objects?

a. A meteorological balloon from Mildura airport?

The airport is to the south-west of the sighting location. The angular size, description, blurred edges, and angular speed described by the observers, and the fact that there were two objects, in my opinion, rule out balloons. In fact, I believe we can rule out any types of balloons.

Courtesy Google maps

b. Aircraft?

The lights had angular size but no observable structure. In my opinion, they were not aircraft.

c. Drones?

The angular speed of 4-7 degrees per second, would suggest a drone would have needed to be relatively close to go at this rate. Again, given the extended angular size, the observers should have been able to make out the structure of a drone. I do not believe they were drones.

d. An exotic atmospheric phenomenon?

Could the objects have been something exotic like ball lighting? A search of the ball lighting scientific literature reveals the following:

1. It can be reported in non thunderstorm, indeed in clear skies, conditions.
2. It is generally pear to round shaped.
3. Note the observers commented on the object's "blurred edges." Ball lighting has been seen to have "fuzzy edges."
4. They have been reported to be multi coloured.
5. Their diameters range from 1cm to 1 metre across.
6. The intensity of their light is such that they are clearly visible in daylight.
7. Their duration has been observed as between 1-60 seconds, remaining constantly bright during this time.

However, and this is a big however, the observation of two identical pieces of ball lighting, following the same path, would appear statistically unlikely.

Tentative conclusion

In attempting to find a mundane, conventional explanation for this observation, the closest fit I can arrive at is that the objects were something like ball lightning, or a similar atmospheric electrical phenomenon.

The observers and I, welcome comments from blog readers. Have you any ideas of what these objects were?

Monday, January 11, 2016

This post concerns the observation of an unusual object, made by Matt, an Adelaide man. His account is as follows.

At 3.10am on Saturday, 9 January 2016, he observed an orange coloured star on the eastern horizon, which was getting bigger. It moved from the eastern horizon to the western horizon, over a period of about five minutes.

It appeared as a large, orange ball. At one stage, its angular size was given as a 10 cent piece in the sky. At one point, it was close enough to see detail. The description given, is silver on the bottom, orange on top, with some black banding between the two. It was emitting its own light. It moved against the wind.

Matt took photographs and a video of the object. Here are two stills ( second is a zoom).

The question is, what was it?

Data

1. WebTrak:

I first consulted Air Service Australia's WebTrak secondary radar system website, to ascertain whether or not there were any aircraft in the sky at the time.

Above is an image of the secondary radar system from Adelaide airport for 3:09:24, As can be seen there was only one aircraft visible. An aircraft type PC12, flying between KGL and ADL was on approach to land at Adelaide airport. I ran the program between 0300 and 0330 and no other aircraft appears on the system.

Wind direction and wind strength at ground level, may of course be different from winds in the upper air. I checked the upper soundings for Adelaide airport for:

a. 1200hrs UTC on 8 January 2016 which equates to 2230hrs 8 January 2016 local Adelaide time, some 5 hours before the observation.

b. I checked for 0000hrs UTC on 9 January 2016 which equates to 1030hrs 9 January 2016, some 7.5 hrs after the observation.

As can be seen from these tables, the winds at the surface are different to those at various heights above the ground.

4. Astronomical sky:
I then went to an Internet based astronomical sky chart to ascertain what was in the sky at the time.

Courtesy Heavens Above website

As can be seen on the above chart, the orange coloured planet Mars was low down on the eastern horizon.

Where were other planets?

The brilliant white coloured planet Jupiter was in the north-eastern sky, higher in elevation than Mars.

Questions

The observer kindly answered a number of questions which I posed to him. These were:

Q1. Did the light from the object flicker, or was it steady all the time?﻿

A1 "It was steady the entire time it was visible to me."

Q2. Have you ever seen hot air hoax garbage bag balloons? If so, how did this compare to what you saw on the 9 January?
A2. "Yes I have seen these and even launched one or two in my day. If it were to be one of these it was a very complex one, being spherical in shape with a silver "undercarriage" attached to a possibly round orange garbag, points against this conclusion. The light was far brighter than emitted from what I have seen of these hoax's before. Steadily bright and visible for many kms, not being a geometry expert but 1km visible from horizon to horizon means many kms of travel. Travel across the prevailing wind direction. These hoax balloons travel on the wind and with an elevation trajectory. I would launch a hoax balloon at a more reasonable time than 3.10am . Terrible timing if you wanting to start gossip."

Q3. What suburb were you in at the time?
A3 "Glenelg South."

Courtesy Google maps.

Q4. What drew your attention to the object in the first place?
A4. "Outside on a clear night I notice what I called a unique coloured star low in the sky, as it was of the same size as the surrounding stars but the lowest of them all. As I watched, it grew in size as it moved towards me, ultimately not directly overhead but no less than 1 or 2 km south of me. Then continued on the same trajectory heading west."

Q5. How did you loose sight of the object?
A5. "I had clear sight of it right to the horizon, no buildings etc in my line of sight, then it was out of sight."

Q6. Did you see from where you were, the aircraft landing at Adelaide airport? How did it compare to the object?
A6. "No the airport is to the north of me, this object passed south of me, hence I was between it and the airport. Again I have clear sight of the airport to the north and very familiar with incoming and outgoing flights, routes, trajectories and colours."

Discussion

1. Could the planet Mars have been the original stimulus?

The orange coloured planet Mars was indeed in the eastern sky, at the time. However, it does not move across to the western horizon in five minutes, and does not have the described structure. It was not the planet Mars.

2. Could it have been the International Space Station?

A check of the "Heavens Above" Internet astronomical website shows that there were no predicted passes of the ISS for that morning. The size, and described structure does not fit the observation.

3. Could it have been an orange coloured hoax, hot air balloon? For three of my investigation reports which are very suggestive as to these balloons causing sightings, please see:

There are some elements suggestive of such a balloon; orange coloured, steady trajectory; five minutes to go east to west horizon; wind direction which could have caused this at some altitudes; no noise. Against this is the reported silver on bottom, orange on top with some black banding between the two. In addition, the observer in answer to my question about hoax balloons, clearly sets out his reasoning for it not being one of these.

Conclusion

On the available information and data, I cannot see a mundane explanation which fits all the details of the observation. I would appreciate hearing from any blog readers who might have any suggestions as to what this object was. Of course, if anyone knows of any other observations of this particular object, please contact me via email keithbasterfield@yahoo.com.au

On Thursday afternoon last week, Mrs Antonio, of Southern Brook Exchange, called at the Northam Police Station to report that, at about 2.15pm that day whilst driving in to Northam accompanied by her daughter Helen, and her daughter-in-law, Mrs Pat Antonio, she had noted a "dim, oblong grey object" in the sky. It was at a great distance and appeared to be low on the horizon over Northam. The sky was clear with not a cloud in sight. The object remained visible for about a minute, and then was gone. The report was confirmed by Miss Antonio and Mrs Pat Antonio."

Thirdly, and this is new to me, I came across a reference to a "Flying Saucer Journal."

"Flying Saucer Journal.

The first issue of a quarterly journal devoted to the scientific study of the phenomena commonly called "flying saucers" is due to be published shortly. The journal is being published by Flying Saucer Service Ltd and its purpose is to further the purely scientific study of these phenomena and a number of scientist have offered to contribute material."

Three Victorian Newspapers (the Mildura Sunraysia Daily; the Swan Hill Guardian and the Wangaratta Chronicle) have now carried detailed articles about Project Newsprint's search for past and current sightings in that state. Many others have carried my letter to the editor requesting sightings. Some 40 plus newspapers have also published my appeal on their newspaper Facebook pages.

Local sighting﻿

Yesterday, I received my first sighting report from a Mildura man, who had read the article in the Sunraysia Daily. He started off by telling me that he had never mentioned this event to anyone outside the family until now.

A 64 year old Mildura man, and his wife were camping at Menindee Weir, near the town of Menindee, New South Wales (latitude 32.4 deg south; longitude 142.4 deg east) on a summer's weekend day in 2013.

At about 2.30am he went to the toilet and glancing in the northern sky, at a low angular elevation, just above the tree tops, he was startled to see an elliptical, cigar shaped object, moving slowly backwards and forwards in the very dark sky. It was moving towards Broken Hill. It had round windows in it, and light could be seen streaming out of these windows.

He described the object's movements as moving forwards a little, then backwards a little, then forwards again, but with a general movement towards Broken Hill, which was to their north-west.

He woke up his wife and asked her to look in the sky, without prompting her with what he had seen himself. She said she could see a cigar shaped object with windows. They watched it for a total of 30 minutes and then went back to bed. In the morning they mentioned it to their son, who was also with them. He told his parents that he had heard of similar local sightings.

He also told me that about a month later, a grazier, on a property north of Menindee Lakes had captured a similar object on their camera. He could not recall further details of this.

Sunday, January 3, 2016

Project Newsprint is a year long project, designed to collect both past and current UFO sightings from rural and remote Australia, via local newspapers.

Stage one which took place between September and December 2015, focused on Western Australia, and was very successful. My report on stage one may be read here.

Stage two has now commenced, and will focus on the state of Victoria. I have dispatched over one hundred electronic "letters to the editor," and will shortly post on the Facebook pages of each of these Victorian newspapers.

It will be interesting to compare the Victorian and Western Australian responses.

Each year, at midnight on 31 December, the NAA releases hundreds of newly processed old files to its RecordsSearch database.

For several years now, part of my New Year ritual has been to look at RecordSearch for files dealing with UAP. Every year, I have found newly released material, and have then requested the NAA to examine it, change the status to "open," paid the relevant fee and had a digitised copy of each file made available, for anyone to read. I have then published summaries of the material, here on this blog.

So, early on the morning of 1 January 2016, I used a number of keywords to search RecordSearch for UAP files. The result was that there was nothing new! This is the first time this has happened, and my initial reaction was "Oh well, it had to happen one year. There has to be a finite limit of such files, created by Australian government departments and archived by the NAA. So, perhaps we have indeed seen all the UAP files held by the NAA."

Not so, there is a file series A9755, with some files, known to be held by the NAA which still do not appear on RecordSearch. Domic McNamara and I saw the whole series in 2004 at the RAAF base Edinburgh. The reason that they are still not on RecordSearch, would simply appear to be their date range, which is 1990-19994. They are still not old enough to be available via the Archives Act.

In 2015, last year, I submitted an FOI Act request to the Department of Defence (DOD) to obtain a copy of these few remaining files. However, the DOD wanted to charge an extremely high price to copy the files. I declined to accept their quoted price. I thought to myself, I will simply wait for them to eventually emerge via the Archives Act.

Today, as I was typing this post, I decided on a whim, to recheck RecordSearch for the A9755 series. Amazingly, two days after they are usually released, three new UAP files from the A9755 series appeared.